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I have used Jiffy 7 pellets as my seed starting medium for over 30 years. Whenever I pot up I remove the plastic netting and grown on in 12 oz or 16 oz styrofoam cups. The netting has always torn easily until this year, I have to cut the netting to remove it. Plus it is much more difficult to remove. Has anyone else noticed this? Would keeping the netting on retard the root growth of my transplants?

I too always use Jiffy pellets. I have not noticed a difference in the netting here yet. I have always transplanted mine with the netting on and never had a problem, The roots always go right through it in my experience.

I never pull the netting off and the roots are never inhibited by it when planted.

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I purchased them last year for the first time to try them out. I bought them in a couple different stores both in trays and in bulk boxes not realizing there'd be any difference. I noticed there were different kinds when soaking/sowing but didn't think much of it until it was time to transplant and I wanted to remove the netting because of the negative things I'd read about root restriction. One type was easy to rip and peel off- the other kind needed scissors and really slowed things down. I returned the rest of the bad ones and in WMart they had some 72-cell trays with the good ones but most were the losers. Guess the transition started last season- too bad but maybe the new ones are more biodegradable than the plastic stuff- no doubt they're cheaper to produce.

The Jiffy pellets sold here have had all the time such white unwoven fabric around them. It does not tear as easily as from the ones I used is USA, which had a plastic net around them. I have tried couple of yeas ago planting some plants with the fabric on the pellets and year and two later I kept finding these fabrics in the flower bed when digging it. I have since then been removing all of the fabric when planting and thrown it in the trash.

There is another brand here, which have the fabric around the pellets as a tube, so they are open at the bottom. They are a bit messier to use, since some peat falls to the tray, but the roots will easier grow through.

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